Published: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 5:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 9:28 p.m.

The clemency hearings got skipped and death became imminent. Trip and Roxy were put down after their owners declined to keep them alive.

Facts

Pit bull data battle

The dangers pit bulls and pit bull mixed breed dogs present to people may depend on who is doing the research. — Based on eight years of data from DogsBite.org, 60 percent of all fatal dog attacks in the U.S. are committed by pit bulls. Next on the list are Rottweilers, which are responsible for 13 percent of those deaths. The data is based on 251 reported dog-related deaths from Jan. 1, 2005 to Dec. 31, 2012. — In a report posted by DogsBite.org that chronicles dog attack deaths in the U.S. and Canada during a 30-year period, editor Merritt Clifton calls it "sheer foolishness" for people to consider pit bulls and Rottweilers as regular dogs. Any dog can have a temperamental moment, but when it happens to a pit bull or Rottweiler, the results too often include severe injuries or death, he wrote.— Fred Kray, a Gainesville attorney and website administrator for Pit Bulletin Legal News, often zeroes in on DogsBite.org and accuses it of creating controversy and distorting facts. He considers the site's staff alarmists who do more harm than good. "Every year, there are 32 dog fatalities a year and yet there are millions of dogs out there," said Kray. "The scope of the problem isn't as large or as troubling as they would have you believe." — Colleen Lynn, who manages the DogsBite.org website, says Kray has "an agenda" and her organization provides dog attack data culled from "multi-sourced news articles." She said at least seven U.S. State Supreme Courts have upheld pit bull bans because they concluded the breed is generally more dangerous.

Two pit bulls believed responsible for injuring three people Friday in Holly Hill were euthanized Monday by the Halifax Humane Society, said Tyler Stover, a spokesman with the shelter.

“The owners had the option to take it to a hearing, but they decided to surrender them,” Stover said.

The same fate may await three of the five pit bulls that were confiscated following a May 5 dog attack in the Daytona North area of western Flagler County. In that case, Flagler County Animal Control officers took possession of five dogs suspected of attacking a mother who was walking along Holly Lane with her 6-year-old daughter.

The girl escaped injury but her mother, Brandi Bookamer, was mauled and hospitalized for bites up and down her arms and legs. Bookamer was released from the hospital but returned for a brief time last week due to complications from her injuries, according to reports. She has turned down numerous requests for an interview.

Diane Voigt, president of the Flagler Humane Society board of directors, said witnesses gave too many conflicting statements to authorities about whether some or all five of the dogs confiscated from 6217 Mahogany Blvd. were involved in that attack.

When people in the neighborhood came to Bookamer's aid, she was lying in a water-filled ditch and the dogs were still biting her, witnesses said. Eventually, Bookamer positively identified three of the dogs that bit her, said Voigt.

“We took pictures of a bunch of dogs and she (Bookamer) picked out those three,” Voigt said. “She was confident in the ones she picked.”

The board's decision on whether to euthanize the three dogs could be made Wednesday. The other two will remain at the Flagler Humane Society and may eventually be put up for adoption, given to a pit bull rescue or returned to the owner, Voigt said.

Voigt said 60 percent of the dogs at her shelter are pit bulls or pit bull mixed breeds. That's common for animal shelters across the Southeast, she said.

The dog attacks in Holly Hill and Daytona North have reignited some debate about whether pit bulls are inherently more dangerous to own than other dogs, but the chance of any sort of ban on the breed is remote. In Florida, a law was passed two decades ago that prohibits counties from enacting ordinances or regulations that focus on or prohibit ownership of specific breeds of dogs. Miami-Dade County passed its own ordinance banning pit bulls years before the state law was signed, so it was granted an exception.

There have been recent efforts to overturn the breed-specific law and officials from some counties — including Broward — have contemplated going before the Florida Legislature to ask for an exemption. But the proposed breed ban in Broward was withdrawn in February following public outcry.

Officials in Flagler and Volusia counties, as well as those from local cities, have not made any moves to ban or restrict pit bulls or other dog breeds but there are attempts to control the numbers. Flagler, on behalf of the Flagler Humane Society, applied for and received a two-year, $83,000 grant from PetSmart Charities to provide free spaying and neutering for pit bulls and pit bull mixed breeds.

The five dogs confiscated from the Mahogany property were spayed, neutered and microchipped at the Flagler Humane Society. The procedures were paid for through the PetSmart grant, according to a shelter official. In general, animal welfare groups, including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, oppose any laws that target specific dog breeds.

“I don't think there is any justification to breed-specific legislation,” said Gainesville attorney Marcy LaHart, who handles animal cases across Florida. Her first dangerous dog case was in 2004 in Volusia County. “Unneutered male dogs and female dogs defending a litter will show signs of aggression, but not because they're pit bulls.”

LaHart said she read news stories about the Daytona North dog mauling and surmised it was another example of someone keeping too many dogs and not supervising them or caring for them appropriately.

“It seems to me this owner had dogs that were breeding indiscriminately,” LaHart said. “If they had been indoor dogs and treated kindly, this accident never would have happened. It seemed this guy's dogs had been a nuisance for a long time.”

She said pit bulls are “terribly overbred” and those who sell them on Craigslist and other websites and those who buy them put no thought into the quality of the dogs' lives.

For the seller, it's an easy way to make money. For the buyer, he or she is buying a guard dog more so than a pet, LaHart said.

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